Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Otis' Dream, parts 1298 - 1301



1298. And what is the result? All of your excitement is swept aside as you come down with the worst cold you have ever had.  For three years now you have been dreaming of the ten days you were going to spend in Paris. You saved up, you got your passport, even though you don't like the picture. You purchased new luggage,and you even have one of those little satchels to keep your money and documents in.

1299. The hotel is not what you expected but it is all right, after-all you are going to be out around town every day so it doesn't matter. And then, you come down with a terrible cold. It was just a tingling in the back of your throat getting off the plane, but now, on your first morning in  Paris, you have a fever, and you are coughing like Ippolit Terentyev in Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot.'  You try to go out for a walk but have to retreat back to your hotel room and lie down again.


1300. And so you spend seven days of your trip to Paris in your hotel room, only going out once to see a doctor, whose office you never managed to find. On the eight day you wake up feeling all right, and by mid-morning you are the happiest you have ever can remember being. Your two days in Paris will be more exciting that the ten would have been. That then is exactly how it was with Otis. He was sick to death for ten days. He would have died there by the side of the road except that...

1301. Except that he was rescued by some travelers on the road, who saw him lying in a ditch, ascertained he was still alive, and loaded him into the back of their cart. It was a cart with very old-fashioned wheels, recently repaired. Otis slept soundly in the back of the cart, sleep is really not the correct word, he was actually in a coma.  He had never ridden in a cart, and although comatose, still he was aware of a strange rocking and bumping sensation he tried to fathom in his dreams.

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